UNITING THE BUILT & NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS

At the ASLA Annual Meeting in San Francisco ASLA announced the Sustainable Sites Initiative, the development of a new rating system for sustainable landscape design. ASLA made this announcement along with the University of Texas at Austin’s Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the United States Botanic Garden.

Just as the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system measures a building’s environmental impact, the Sites Initiative will measure the sustainability of designed landscapes of all types, including public, commercial, and residential projects. The U.S. Green Building Council is lending its support to this project and plans to adopt the Sustainable Sites metrics into its LEED system once they are finished.

“This will provide the missing link for green building standards,” said Nancy Somerville, Executive Vice President and CEO of ASLA. “Developers, designers, owners, and public officials will now have the tools at hand to significantly increase sustainability in the built environment, from interiors to landscapes.”

Additional partners in the Sites Initiative include the U.S. Green Building Council, the Environmental Protection Agency’s GreenScapes Program, the National Recreation and Parks Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Environment and Water Resources Institute, the National Association of County and City Health Officials, the Nature Conservancy’s Global Invasive Species Initiative, and The Center for Sustainable Development at the University of Texas at Austin. For more information, visit www.sustainablesites.org.